Bible Study Blueprint: More steps and tips to studying the Bible

Embark on a transformative journey with me, into the world of Bible study where we uncover the richness of Scripture and its impact on our faith. 

Let's talk practicality: I know the challenges of maintaining a consistent study habit, which is why I'm offering you a toolbox of resources to jumpstart your journey. Delve into the methods of Kay Arthur, Howard Hendricks, Charles Swindoll, and Jen Wilkin, whose works serve as your maps to deeper understanding and application of biblical teachings. Whether you prefer to study in solitude or thrive in a group setting, the insights from these seasoned scholars will enhance your approach to the inductive method of Bible study—observing, interpreting, and applying God's Word. Prepare to have your faith deepened and your understanding broadened as we break down, not just the 'how,' but the 'why' behind each verse and story, ensuring that your Bible study experience is not only informative but transformative.

Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven

Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org

Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives. I am Duane, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Everyone welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast, where we strive to encourage you to live for Christ faithfully by offering guidance on how to study the Bible, how to understand the Bible better and how to remain faithful to historic Christianity in a contemporary society. In the next episode, I will give some tips on how to study the Bible and then offer some tools that you can use to study the Bible also. So you know, studying the Bible can and is a transformational journey that can deepen our faith, enrich our knowledge and provide some valuable insights into who God is. But sometimes we struggle with knowing how to study the Bible and believe it or not. There's different ways to approach studying God's Word. So the first tip is on how to study the Bible is you can do a character study. So this is where you pick a character from the Bible maybe Abraham or Esther and you read about them. You have questions that you ask yourself to better understand about the life of this person. So tip number two is you can study a book of the Bible where you break it down even into chapter and into verse. So number three, the third way how to study the Bible, is you can do a topical study. So topical study could be any topic in the Bible. So you could study prayer, maybe the fruits of the spirit, you could study what the Bible says about marriage, just a variety of topics in the Bible that you could choose from. Tip number four you can do a word study. So say, for instance, you're reading the Bible and a word just pops out at you like maybe peace, and you want to learn more about that word in the Bible. So what you would do you would do a word study is you would look up that word in a concordian, see where it is in the Bible. You would look up the Hebrew and Greek, many other words you better understand the word that were in different contexts within the Bible, right? So tip number five is you can do a Bible study. So when I talk about a Bible study, I'm talking more like a workbook that I have here. So this is a Bible study workbook on Elizabeth, and so what workbooks do is they have different questions for filling the blank. They will have you read the scripture on that. It could be a particular topic. This one is a character study. They have you read the verses according to that topic or that person. It gives you kind of like trying to interpret the scripture applications how you can apply it to your life and just gives your overall, gives your in-depth study on that particular topic or that person so you can do a Bible study. So Bible studies can be online. Like I say, it can be a workbook. You can do this as a group or solo. So that's tip number five Bible study workbooks.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Six tips to study the Bible is the inductive method. So inductive method includes observation what does it say? Interpretation, what does it mean, and then application how should it change me? So when you use the inductive method, this is going to help you dig deeper into the Bible to really really understand what it's saying. So I have some resources for you to help you get started on this method here. I have two to start here with is how to study the Bible by K Arthur and then living by the book by Howard Hendricks. So both of these resources, they go over in-depth how to interpret and then apply the Bible. So it goes over the exact steps on how to do the process. So another resource that I have that I would recommend is Searching the Scriptures by Charles Wendall. He also goes over observation and interpretation, but he also throws in correlation on how to compare various scriptures of the Bible, cross-referencing how to interpret scripture with scripture, and then he also goes over applications in this resource also. So this is Searching the Scripture by Charles Wendall, and then the last resource that I have is Women of the Word by Jen Wilkins. So Jen Wilkins has comprehension instead of observation. So comprehension, what she's really trying to stress in here is really understanding what you read and what you see, and then she also has interpretation and then application in this resource. So this is Women of the Word by Jen Wilkins. So now that we have discussed some ways on how to approach studying the Bible, let's talk about some tools that can aid in that study.

Speaker 1: 6:06

So, of course, you're going to need a Bible. I would recommend a printed Bible. I don't have nothing against Bibles on your phone, but I think a printed Bible helps to remove any distractions such as messages or incoming notifications that tend to pop up on our phone. So then of course, you would need to choose a translation that you can understand, and here is where your phone can be helpful if you don't already have a printed Bible and you don't know what you want to get. So if you download a Bible app, it has different translations for you to read and I would suggest that you read different translations and C was one that you can understand and then get the printed version of that translation. So at least you have a Bible that you can understand and then that you know that you can understand before, like if you just buy one just blindly, not knowing if you can understand it or not. So there's different translations of the Bible. So you have the ESV, which is English Standard Version, the ENLT New Living Translation, the NASB New American Standard Bible. You have the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible, and this is a small sampling of the myriad of translations that are out there.

Speaker 1: 7:42

So, beside your Bible, I think it's helpful to have a notebook, pen and highlighter to take notes as you read. Some people like to take notes in their Bible, which is good, because whatever you're taking down, you'll have the verse or the passage right there so you can remember, or you can use a notebook. It's really up to you. So there are also Bibles that have kind of like indented texts and lines for you to make notes in it. So I would encourage you, if you feel like you want to make notes in your Bible, look up some of those Bibles. It'll give you more room to take notes instead of just like taking notes in the margin. So some other tools that are helpful.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Dictionaries are helpful to look up words that you don't know. Unger's Bible dictionary is a good dictionary to use. There's also a Bible concordance. This is an alphabetical list of principal words used in a book or a body of work, so it lists every instance in which a word is used in this immediate context. So an example of a Bible concordance would be the new Strong's exhaustive concordance of the Bible. You also have Young's analytical concordance of the Bible or the NIV exhaustive concordance of the Bible, so you can look some of those up to see if those might be helpful for you.

Speaker 1: 9:24

I always say a picture is worth a thousand words and, as a visual learner myself, when I see a picture, a map or a chart to explain a concept, I'm able to understand it better. So which is why I think Bible Map or Bible Atlas is a great Bible study tool for you to use. So Bible Atlas is a book of maps and charts related to the Bible. Bibles are going to have maps in the back of your Bible. One Bible Atlas you could use is the Moody Atlas of the Bible Lands, which is a helpful one.

Speaker 1: 10:02

So just to kind of give you a better understanding of why maps would be important. Maps help to create like a visual setting of a particular account in the Bible. So when you look on the map for places, it helps to see places being described in the Bible and then you can start to make connections with those places in which it's referring to in that particular passage or in a related passage of scripture. So maps can help the Bible come alive a little bit better. And then maps can also kind of like help give you context to the story, to the story or account that is in the Bible. So remember you know the Bible is not set in a Western context. So if we understand the geographical context within the culture and historical context, it kind of helps us to understand what's happening in the passage and it helps our interpretation of that passage. So, for example, if you, when you read the account of Abraham and you look up a map, look on a map to see his journey to the land of Canaan, you can see how far that he traveled and it puts a new perspective on the faith Abraham must have to believe in a God who called him to leave his land, leave his family and go to a new land. All right.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Next we have Bible commentary. So a Bible commentary is helpful in understanding and interpretation and in applying difficult passages that you, that you might study in the Bible. So commentaries tend to be divided by chapter verse and then some of them look into the languages of the Bible, like Aramaic, hebrew and Greek. I think one thing to keep in mind when we're utilizing commentaries is to remember that it's a man made too. It's not inspired by God. So commentaries are usually written by pastors through the lowlands who have painstakingly studied the Bible for many years to help people understand the Bible better.

Speaker 1: 12:44

So commentaries come in a little a couple of different forms. So you have one volume commentaries which has like the whole Bible, so they're a little bit more concise and shortened. Then you would have. Then they also have like two volume commentaries which, like one volume is the Old Testament and then another volume is the New Testament and then you have multi volume ones, which they have. Maybe one commentary is about the whole book of one particular book of the Bible. Say, for instance, you'll just have a commentary on the whole book of Genesis, a whole book commentary on a book of John Usually the smaller books, like First and Second John, they're usually all put into one volume itself.

Speaker 1: 13:35

So you're probably wondering okay, commentary, I probably need one, which one should I get? So the best way to choose a commentary is to probably ask your pastor or a mentor for their recommendation, because if they're constantly studying the Bible, they may have certain go to ones that they use to use for their sermon preparation. And then, if that's the case a pastor or a mentor you can ask them hey, can I, can I borrow your commentary to kind of see, hey, would this be helpful to you in your study? And then that will lead you on to see, okay, can this help me understand the Bible a little bit better? And then, when you get that commentary, I think it would be helpful to kind of look up passages that you're familiar with and you know the meaning or the correct interpretation of it and you can see okay, does this commentary kind of align with your biblical worldview? So one passage would, for example, you could look up, is Genesis one in one. So that might be helpful for you as you're trying to decipher and determine which commentary would be helpful for you.

Speaker 1: 15:01

Another helpful tool can be a Bible handbook. So a Bible handbook is just like a reference of the Bible. It gives like an overview of the Bible and then the different books of the Bible. It ties in like the cultural, historical, archaeological aspects of the Bible and a lot of them have like pictures, diagrams and maps and charts to better help you understand what's going on in that particular book. So it's also helpful if you're a visual learner like me.

Speaker 1: 15:48

So all of these tools that I've talked about, you can also find these online and through apps. So some apps you can utilize or online tools you can utilize is Bible Gateway, bible Hub you got the Blue Letter Bible Bible Study Tools. All of these resources. They have commentaries, they have dictionaries, they have concordance and then they also have different Bible translations for you. Alright, so this wraps up this episode. Hopefully it's giving you some guidance on how you can study the Bible and then some tools that are available to help you understand whatever you're studying in the Bible. So next time, remember God is always good and is always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you.